The Oxford English Literary History Volume V: 1645-1714: The Later Seventeenth Century

The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage that stretches back for a millennium and more.

Each of these thirteen groundbreaking volumes offers a leading scholar's considered assessment of the authors, works, cultural traditions, events, and ideas that shaped the literary voices of their age. The series will enlighten and inspire not only everyone studying, teaching, and researching in English Literature, but all serious readers.

This volume covers the period 1645-1714, and removes the traditional literary period labels and boundaries used in earlier studies to categorize the literary culture of late seventeenth-century England. It invites readers to explore the continuities and the literary innovations occurring during six turbulent decades, as English readers and writers lived through unprecedented events including a King tried and executed by Parliament and another exiled, the creation of the national entity 'Great Britain', and an expanding English awareness of the New World as well as encounters with the cultures of Asia and the subcontinent. The period saw the establishment of new concepts of authorship and it saw a dramatic increase of women working as professional, commercial writers. London theatres closed by law in 1642 reopened with new forms of entertainments from musical theatrical spectaculars to contemporary comedies of manners with celebrity actors and actresses. Emerging literary forms such as epistolary fictions and topical essays were circulated and promoted by new media including newspapers, periodical publications, and advertising and laws were changing governing censorship and taking the initial steps in the development of copyright. It was a period which produced some of the most profound and influential literary expressions of religious faith from John Milton's Paradise Lost and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, while simultaneously giving rise to a culture of libertinism and savage polemical satire, as well as fostering the new dispassionate discourses of experimental sciences and the conventions of popular romance.

Margaret J. M. Ezell, Distinguished Professor of English and John and Sara Lindsey Chair of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University

Margaret Ezell is a Distinguished Professor of English and the John and Sara Lindsey Chair of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. She received her degrees from Wellesley College and Cambridge University.

List of Figures
Abbreviations
A Note on the Texts
A Preface to the Reader: Describing 'Literary Life' in the Mid- and Late Seventeenth Century
1. Ending the War, Creating a Commonwealth, and Surviving the Interregnum, 1645-1658
I. 1645
II. Laws Regulating Publication, Speech, and Performance, 1645-1658
III. Humphrey Moseley and London Literary Publishing: Making the Book, Image, and Word
IV. Hearing, Speaking, Writing: Religious Discourse from the Pulpit, among Congregations, and from the Prophets
V. Fiction and Adventure Narratives: Romantic Foreigners and Native Romances
VI. Sociable Texts: Manuscript Circulation, Writers, and Readers in Britain and Abroad
2. The Return of the King, Restoration, and Innovation, 1659-1673
I. 1659-1660
II. Laws Regulating Publication, Speech, and Performance, 1660-1673
III. Renovating the Stage: Companies, Actresses, Repertoir, Theatre Innovations, and the Touring Companies
IV. Enacting Libertinism: Court Performance and Literary Culture
V. Creating Science: The Royal Society and the New Literatures of Science
VI. 'Adventurous Song': Samuel Butler, Abraham Cowley, Katherine Philips, John Milton, and 1660s Verse
3. Reading and Writing for Profit and Delight, 1674 - 1684
I. 1674-1675
II. Laws Regulating Publication, Speech, and Performance, 1674-1684
III. Poets and the Politics of Patronage and Literary Criticism
IV. Theatrical Entertainments Outside the London Commercial Playhouses: Smock Alley, Strollers, School Plays, and Private Performances
V. Fictions: The Pilgrim's Progress, the New 'Novels', and Love and Erotica
VI. Foreign Parts: English Readers and Foreign Lands and Culture
4. The End of the Century, Scripting Transitions, 1685-1699
I. 1685-1686
II. Laws Regulating Publication, Speech, and Performance, 1685-1699
III. Heard in the Street: Broadside Ballads
IV. Seen on Stage: English Operas, the Female Wits, and the 'Reformed' Stage
V. Debates between the Sexes: Satires, Advice, and Polemics
5. Writing the New Britain, 1700-1714
I. 1700
II. Laws Regulating Publication, Preaching, and Performance, 1700-1714
III. Kit-Cats and Scriblerians: Clubs, Wits, the Tatler, the Spectator, and The Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus
IV. Booksellers and the Book Trade: John Dunton, Edmund Curll, Grub Street, and the Rise of Bernard Lintot
V. 'The Great Business of Poetry': Poets, Pastoral, and Politics
Appendix: Companion Volume: Table of Contents
Bibliography
Index